I lay curled on my side and watched him sleep. His long, dark hair drifted over one eye and across the bridge of his nose. It’d grown even longer since we’d been in Mexico and needed a trim. Or maybe not. I kind of liked the added reckless look it gave him.

My fingers itched to touch him, but I settled for gazing upon him with my eyes instead. It felt like I hadn’t see him in weeks, but in reality, it’d been only a little over twenty-four hours. Since Eden was due soon, Val had handed over all day-to-day business to Mateo. I didn’t ask any questions as to where he went or what he did. I didn’t want to know. All I cared about was that he returned in one piece.

My husband.

I’d loved Mateo Cortes from the first moment I saw him as a teenaged girl, and nothing had changed. Actually, that wasn’t true. Everything had changed. I still loved him, but I saw him with new eyes. Stronger eyes. Eyes that viewed the world for what it was. Eyes that now knew the evil that resided in the hearts of ones trusted to protect us.

Eyes that saw him faced with a choice, and eyes that watched him protect me over all others. Just like he promised from the first moment we met.

He shifted in his sleep, and a lock of hair caught in between his full lips. I moved my hand to brush it away then gasped as his hand snaked out from under his pillow and wrapped around my wrist. Midnight eyes met mine, and he pulled his arm back, sending me tumbling on top of his chest. It wasn’t an easy landing. The toned and hardened planes rose and fell with even breaths as he studied me.

“If you wanted my attention, aim a little lower, mi amor.” His voice sounded rough as he ran a palm over my cheek.

“I thought you were asleep.”

The darkness in his gaze made me shiver. Sliding his hand down my arm, he entwined our hands and placed them over the growing swell of his erection. “I haven’t touched my wife in over twenty-four hours. What do you think?”

The smile in his eyes held me prisoner. They weren’t hardened or shrouded in secrets. Quite the opposite. As they roamed over every inch of my face, I lost myself in their raw honesty. When I gazed into them, all I saw was the love I’d waited four years to reclaim.

Our lips met in a kiss both tender and combustible. Wrapping his arms around my waist, he pulled my legs until I straddled him, and I deepened the kiss. The sheet slipped down his thighs, his cock already hard against my ass. In just a few touches, slickness had built between my legs, but that wasn’t what this was about.

This was about a promise. This is my need to prove to him that he could walk beside me in his world as my husband—not in front of me as my shield.

“Leighton.” He groaned low and primitive as I raised my hips and slowly guided him inside me. It was instinctive for Mateo to take control—to grasp my hips and thrust upward until my body obeyed him. But this time, he held onto my hips, calling out my name through thinly held restraint as I slowly rode him. I gripped his chest as a spark lit in my stomach and ignited into an out of control flame.

Mateo’s face contorted, and I knew he felt it too. We were no longer Leighton and Mateo. We were a force in this world—one no one could ever break again.

“I love you, Matty,” I whispered as I lowered onto him one last time and splintered apart.

My release prompted his, and he gritted his teeth through a guttural groan. Neither of us moved. We stared at each other with silent words not needing to be vocalized.

Except for four.

“Te amo, Star,” he said, weaving his hands through my hair and bringing my lips to his. “Siempre.”

I love you, Star. Forever.